5.2. Creating a Database offline

The second method of database creation is to do it off-line, using the slapd
database tools described below. This method is best if you have many
thousands of entries to create, which would take an unacceptably long time
using the LDAP method described above. These tools read the slapd configuration
file and an input LDIF file containing a text representation of the entries to
add. For database types which support the tools, they produce the database files
directly (otherwise you must use the on-line method above). There are several important
configuration options you will want to be sure and set in the config file
database definition first:

suffix <dn>

As described in the preceding section, this option says which entries are to be
held by this database. You should set this to the DN of the root of the subtree
you are trying to create. For example:

suffix "o=TUDelft, c=NL"

You should be sure to specify a directory where the index files should be
created:

directory /usr/local/tudelft

Finally, you need to specify which indexes you want to build. This is done by
one or more index options.

index {<attrlist> | default } [pres,eq,approx,sub,none]

For example:

index cn,sn,uid pres,eq,sub
index objectClass eq

This would create presence, equality and substring indexes for the cn, sn, and uid
attributes and an equality index for the objectClass attribute. See the configuration file section
for more information on this option.

Once you've configured things to your liking, you create the primary database
and associated indexes by running the slapadd(8) program:

Specifies the LDIF input file containing the entries to add in text form (Take
a look on the next section).

-f <slapdconfigfile>

Specifies the slapd configuration file that tells where to create the indexes,
what indexes to create, etc.

-d <debuglevel>

Turn on debugging, as specified by <debuglevel>. The debug levels are the
same as for slapd. See the Section 4.1 for more details.

-n <databasenumber>

An optional argument that specifies which database to modify. The first
database listed in the configuration file is 1, the second 2, etc. By default,
the first database in the configuration file is used. Should not be used
in conjunction with -b.

-b <suffix>

An optional argument that specifies which database to modify. The provided
suffix is matched against a database suffix directive to determine the database
number. Should not be used in conjunction with -n.

Sometimes it may be necessary to regenerate indices (such as after modifying
slapd.conf(5)). This is possible using the slapindex(8) program. slapindex is
invoked like this:

Where the -f, -d, -n and -b options are the same as for the slapadd(1) program.
slapindex rebuilds all indices based upon the current database contents.

The slapcat program is used to dump the database to an LDIF file. This can be
useful when you want to make a human-readable backup of your database or when you
want to edit your database off-line. The program is invoked like this: